Ever heard someone mention the "Atkins Building" or "Atkins Courthouse"? It's located across from the Wilkie D. and it's where many of our magistrate judges currently sit. The courthouse is named after Judge C. Clyde Atkins. A tribute from UF law school described him as a "champion of civil rights and a defender of those who were less fortunate." Among his important rulings were his orders desegregating Miami-Dade County Public schools (Pate v. Dade County School Board, 315 F. Supp. 1161 (S.D. Fla. 1969).
FBA write-up below.
Judge C. Clyde Atkins was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson and served on the district court from 1966-1999. In Pottinger v. City of Miami, 810 F. Supp. 1551 (S.D. Fla. 1992), Judge Atkins found that the City of Miami violated the constitutional rights of unhoused individuals through a policy of arresting them for unavoidable, life-sustaining acts in public and by seizing and destroying their property, warranting injunctive relief under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The façade and entrance of the courthouse that bears Judge Atkins’s name recently received an impressive renovation.
6 comments:
Atkins was an excellent judge. But what does it mean, as a judge, to be a "defender of those less fortunate."? Isn't that descriptor the exact opposite of what a judge is supposed to be? Our system is adversarial. By definition, one of the parties will be less fortunate than the other, especially in criminal cases. So does that mean a judge who "defends the less fortunate" tips the scales in their favor to even the score that life has rendered unfair? I don't think that is what UF meant, but taken to its logical end, it is the inevitable result.
Defending the less fortunate means things like making sure people have access to counsel and are able to vindicate their rights. It’s not tipping the scale to allow everyone access to justice. Sounds like you might benefit from reading a little bit more about Clyde Atkins.
1019 Lighten up Francis
Are you really too lazy to read the UF tribute and see the description clearly applies to his time as a lawyer before he became a judge?
“ His achievements in this arena included advocating for the rights of the homeless, upholding the rights of Cuban and Haitian refugees to lodge petitions in U.S. courts, and working for the desegregation of public schools.”
Many of today's lawyers were not even born when Judge Atkins and other prominent Miamians, such as Holmes Braddock of school board fame (he just died recently, in his 90s) among others, bravely and at significant personal and professional risk, pushed for desegregation of Florida schools, a fight that continued well into the decades after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, desegregation decision. One can certainly disagree with individual court decisions (I personally have serious doubts about Pottinger, for example), but the overall message of Judge Atkins's career is certainly a jewel in Florida's crown.
I have fond memories of appearing before Judge Atkins. But my favorite memories are when he addressed the jury with the preface "we who labor in the vineyards of the law". Every time he said that, his law clerk, an older, plain speaking, no nonsense woman [whose name escapes me] , would tilt her head upwards and roll her eyes . I'm sure she was with him for years. Maybe even his secretary before he was a Judge.
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